U.S. Politics: The Flood Shall Wash Away The Cobbs

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Second, I don’t know how much of the blame Bush deserves for the economic collapse. It happened during his Administration, so he’ll always have to eat it from a historical perspective, but it’s my (limited) understanding that a more accurate assessment of culpability with regards to the crash belongs to several Administrations. Now that doesn’t absolve Bush of having bad economic policies, but the crash wasn’t entirely his fault.

Yeah the language I'd prefer is Bush presided over the economic collapse, because obviously there's enough responsibility to go around.  But still, buck stops here and all.

Anyway, bottomline, as others have mentioned, is the economy is still doing well right now and Trump hasn't started any major wars.  Does Trump's toxic combination of neo-con foreign policy and isolationist economic policy suggest he has the potential to damage the country far worse than Dubya?  Sure, but it's still potential at this point.

37 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And as I've said before, the norm is 8 years of a president in the US; 4 years is very, very rare, and usually under really weird circumstances. 

I wouldn't describe 1980 and 1992 as "really weird" circumstances.  The common denominators there are a bad economy, a strong third party bid, as well as a significant primary challenge to the incumbent.  Since FDR, six presidents have won reelection and two presidents have lost reelection.  I don't think you can glean any "norm" from that other than that it is difficult to defeat a sitting president, like any incumbent, especially if the economy is doing well.  Of course, the flip side to that is the incumbent is particularly vulnerable if the economy is doing poorly.

45 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

What's more interesting and scary to me is that Trump's approval has increased by a net of +4 (+2 approve, -2 disapprove) in the last few weeks, despite increasing scandal about Stormy Daniels and the like.

I think Silver's article yesterday was useful in demonstrating two things:  Trump has a peculiarly narrow range (even when taking polarization into account), and approval early in a president's term is not predictive, or correlated, with approval later in his term.

[straits]

16 hours ago, dmc515 said:

First, yes, what you quoted was a load of horseshit rather than a "reality check," I'm not going to bother with it.

I understand that you don't have to entertain my curiosity here - as a person who spent most of their life in countries that the US bombed extensively (and thus biased), I would appreciate if I were pointed to credible sources of information or literature, which could lead an outside observer to conclude that the US is not effectively a rogue state, doing whatever its right wing parties please. 

[DMC]

22 minutes ago, straits said:

I would appreciate if I were pointed to credible sources of information or literature, which could lead an outside observer to conclude that the US is not effectively a rogue state, doing whatever its right wing parties please.

This request is pretty similar to a "have you stopped beating your wife" loaded question.

[straits]

Just now, dmc515 said:

This request is pretty similar to a "have you stopped beating your wife" loaded question.

Is there a way to reframe this question, that would lead you to answer with a serious suggestion? What is your opinion on the US' role in the world, from the end of WW2 till today? I won't keep asking of course, it will derail the thread.

[Kalbear]

40 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I wouldn't describe 1980 and 1992 as "really weird" circumstances.  The common denominators there are a bad economy, a strong third party bid, as well as a significant primary challenge to the incumbent. 

1980 had a good primary race for Carter, but 1992 didn't have much of anything against Bush - Buchanan stayed in longer, but he was never a contender. Seems weird to characterize 1980 as having a strong 3rd party candidate given how thoroughly Reagan won; even if all the votes for Johnson went to Carter, Reagan still would have won by 4%. 

Bad economy is the big one, of course, unless you're coming off of a major scandal. And of the three one-term POTUSes, only one - Carter - was a switch party person, like Trump is. Bush was essentially the third term of the Reagan presidency, and Ford was the continuation of Nixon. 

In any case, the norm is getting a second term, and the exception is not. 

 

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, straits said:

What is your opinion on the US' role in the world, from the end of WW2 till today?

A very bad one.  Anyway, the quote I was originally responding to that was horseshit was the notion the US "wipes its ass" with all international agreements, which is demonstrably and incredibly false.  I'm not interested in defending the US' role in the world.

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

1980 had a good primary race for Carter, but 1992 didn't have much of anything against Bush - Buchanan stayed in longer, but he was never a contender. Seems weird to characterize 1980 as having a strong 3rd party candidate given how thoroughly Reagan won; even if all the votes for Johnson went to Carter, Reagan still would have won by 4%. 

Buchanan got 23% of the primary vote in 92.  That's clearly a significant challenge insofar as other than Carter, the next highest primary challenger to a president running for reelection since FDR is John Bricker with 8 percent in 1956.  John Anderson got 6.6% of the popular vote in 1980.  Other than Perot in 92 and 96 and Wallace in 68 (no incumbent), that's by far the highest margin for a third party candidate.  So I'd say both are pretty strong indicators, although yes, the economy is obviously the strongest one.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Re: Bush's awfulness. Don't forget the politicization of the Justice Department with the US Attorneys firing scandal. And the staffing of the Iraqi occupation with politically loyal numpties instead of competent administrators. Trump isn't a break from Bush the Lesser; he's just the next step in the devolution of the Republican Party into a fascist criminal conspiracy.

Yup.  Bush was really terrible - and the rest of the world did lose respect for the US because of it.  This was a common sentiment amongst my college friends from overseas.  My freshman  year of school was 2001, Especially those from the Middle East, but also with South American and Euro students and professors.  

I remember a few American friends who were studying in London joked about trying to pass as Canadians.  

Now, Trump certainly has the likely potential to go far beyond the damage W did, but he hasn't had an Iraq yet.  Or a Patriot Act.  

[Kalbear]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/994336789132464128

[Yukle]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Good grief, there might not be a blue tide after all. And no loss of Congress for the Republicans.

That's because of gerrymandering. Every time I post this, someone either downplays it or defends it.

However, no one disputes that the Democrats will massively outpoll the Republicans in November. Conservative estimates have a nation-wide lead of about 6%, stretching out to 9%.

That is a landslide victory in a normal and fair political system. It is utterly and entirely despicable that a party could command a massive lead in votes and not win.

Good thing it doesn't happen at Presidential level, eh?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm not convinced Obama would have done it. Clinton probably would have. Bush went a lot further than was necessary. Clinton probably wouldn't have gone for the AUMF, but Obama was cool with it. 

While we obviously will never know, I personally believe most elected officials would have signed off on something similar to the Patriot Act, including Obama. But the bolded is 100% correct. There aren't many politicians that would have taken it as far as Bush did, but their daddies weren't the target of an assassination plot, so who are we to judge. 

Quote

I hate this argument. We should be against torture regardless of its efficacy, because the counterpoint is that we start arguing about if it works and not who we're performing it on. When we can even start arguing about it because it might work, we lose entirely the argument that no prisoner should be tortured. 

I totally agree. I was just quickly pointing out that Trump doesn't learn anything, and often times he'll double down in the face of being dead wrong.

Quote

Alternately, Trump learned from Bush that there was no real pushback to any of his stuff until an economic collapse, and by then he was long gone and got him and his friends rich. That sounds like Trump's MO to a T, as it does most elite VC and liquidator types. Trump learned that Bush stayed in office and in power for 8 years while advocating torture, endless war, harsh lines on the middle east, ignoring European and Asian allies and giving massive amounts of money to the rich. 

Eh, there was a lot of push back before the crash culminating in the 2006 wave. And I suspect Trump was still a squishy Democrat during that time period. I don't think Trump learned anything from Bush. He probably wasn't even paying attention to him all that much.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I personally believe most elected officials would have signed off on something similar to the Patriot Act, including Obama

Let's remember the Patriot Act originally passed the House 357-66 (145-62 for Dems) and 98-1 (Feingold) in the Senate.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Re: Bush's awfulness. Don't forget the politicization of the Justice Department with the US Attorneys firing scandal. And the staffing of the Iraqi occupation with politically loyal numpties instead of competent administrators. Trump isn't a break from Bush the Lesser; he's just the next step in the devolution of the Republican Party into a fascist criminal conspiracy.

This is ultimately what I was trying to get at. Trump is the next evolution. And this one is a lot scarier than I would have expected. The combination of narcissism, sadism, zero respect for traditions, lack on intellectual curiosity and a Republican Congress willing to play to his worst instincts can't produce a good result.  

[Yukle]

6 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Let's remember the Patriot Act originally passed the House 357-66 (145-62 for Dems) and 98-1 (Feingold) in the Senate.

Yeah... why didn't Snowden's revelations about the extent of NSA data collection have a bigger impact... ?

At the very least, it was great when tech companies ditched all pf the government-provided free encryption keys, after it turned out there was a hidden solution that would always hold true. And they absolutely used it.

Now Apple and Google once again taking the fight to the EU and USA, refusing to comply with requests to make all phone companies have a compulsory backdoor. I really hope that they refuse to comply. Google especially has a strong hand. If legislation is passed, they should turn off Google until they get their way. No one will mess with that.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Let's remember the Patriot Act originally passed the House 357-66 (145-62 for Dems) and 98-1 (Feingold) in the Senate.

Yeah I couldn't remember the exact numbers, but I remembered them to be overwhelming. 

Also, this new notification system is dope. Can we no longer see the post count in the thread though?

[Darth Richard II]

44 minutes ago, Yukle said:

That's because of gerrymandering. Every time I post this, someone either downplays it or defends it.

However, no one disputes that the Democrats will massively outpoll the Republicans in November. Conservative estimates have a nation-wide lead of about 6%, stretching out to 9%.

That is a landslide victory in a normal and fair political system. It is utterly and entirely despicable that a party could command a massive lead in votes and not win.

Good thing it doesn't happen at Presidential level, eh?

How the actual fuck does one defend gerrymandering?

[Martell Spy]

41 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

While we obviously will never know, I personally believe most elected officials would have signed off on something similar to the Patriot Act, including Obama. But the bolded is 100% correct. There aren't many politicians that would have taken it as far as Bush did, but their daddies weren't the target of an assassination plot, so who are we to judge. 

I totally agree. I was just quickly pointing out that Trump doesn't learn anything, and often times he'll double down in the face of being dead wrong.

Eh, there was a lot of push back before the crash culminating in the 2006 wave. And I suspect Trump was still a squishy Democrat during that time period. I don't think Trump learned anything from Bush. He probably wasn't even paying attention to him all that much.

Trump's political education came from the birthers.

[Yukle]

6 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

How the actual fuck does one defend gerrymandering?

The usual stuff I get downplays it more than defending, but it's something along these lines:

"Democrats all live in cities anyway."

"All sides do it, which makes it okay."

And so on.

The Republican wave coincided with the emergence of brutally efficient algorithms. Unless gerrymandering is eliminated, the Republicans have a permanent lock on Congress.

Similarly, unless some radical policy appealing to rural people switches the rural vote to the Democrats, they have no long-term hold on the Senate ever again. 31 states are "red" states. That's a veto-proof 62 votes if you follow partisan leans. The Democrats have long outperformed the partisan leans, but as voter suppression continues to take hold, that will slowly fade away.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

How the actual fuck does one defend gerrymandering?

By arguing that both Elbridge Gerry and salamanders are totally cool.

[Yukle]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Also, this new notification system is dope. Can we no longer see the post count in the thread though?

That's peculiar, I can see your post count. 7,898 at the moment. Can you not see it beneath each profile picture? 

[Yukle]

Just now, dmc515 said:

By arguing that both Elbridge Gerry and salamanders are totally cool.